Actually, maybe more like 2025? I will leave that to the futurists.

I stayed at home today to look after Helen, she’s really sick. She seems chirpier, however, if not any healthier. Anyway, in lieu of anything interesting happening, I shall copy/paste something I wrote last night instead of doing any reading for marketing.

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I like watching people.

No, not in a creepy way, in an ethnographical kind of way (I’d cool, I’ll wait if you need to look that up) – you can tell a lot about someone from just watching them walk by.

Like, you might see someone keep glancing at something that’s not there. You know nothing’s there because they always look in the same direction, regardless of where they’re facing. It’s not a whole-head-moving thing, just an eyeball glance, and they always seem kind of anxious. They’ll be checking their email for a delivery confirmation, eager to know if you got that thing they sent you. Maybe they sent a message they shouldn’t have, or perhaps it’s the new proposal to Steve to present to the board tomorrow. Sure, there are extensions to make sure you’re alerted to them the same way you are to actual mail, but even then it’s hard to un-learn the behaviour when you’re anxious. Like glancing deliberately at the icon can make it update differently somehow (which it could, actually, until a couple of years ago under Windows anyway).

These last couple of months Windows users have been sticking out like a sore thumb. Everyone who dutifully grabbed last month’s crucial updates (and let’s face it, who’d dare not to?) twitches slightly every seven steps. Something to do with the new, more secure garbage collection routines, I don’t know. They’re working on it, of course, but honestly? I’m not sure anyone minds too much. Windows users are a hardy sort, they’ve been putting up with stuff like this for years now and it’s nothing compared to some of the more news-worthy bugs. Hell, last year there was a solid week in which none of them could jump. Thankfully jumping is a little-used skill in the modern world, but there were a couple of high-profile accidents before a patch surfaced.

Linux users are more subtle. The dead give-away is when you actually try and talk to one, of course. Vocal communication’s not really been worth bothering with since kernel 12.4, when the community embraced a set of extensions from an enterprising young Thai kid. Effectively, they’re all telepathic, every man jack one of them. Other systems are more or less interoperable now, though not so polished, so the Linux kids only really have to engage their mouths when speaking to someone like me, without anything running on top of their brain (or under it, whatever – a precise metaphor eludes me). As such, there’s this kind of pause, as they remember what the muscles are for. In the worst cases, the early adopters who haven’t spoken for upwards of two years, it can be like conversing with a deaf person. What with that, and the now-traditional smell, I don’t talk to Linux folks unless I have to.

Sometimes you’ll see someone walking in some bizarre counter-intuitive fashion. They’re those early-adopters again (which at least makes them easy to avoid), beta-testing new locomotion algorithms or something. Efficiency nuts, always striving to shave that last extra watt/meter off their walk to the coffee place. Which, if it’s Starbucks, will be totally mac-user free. Something about the new payment system requires some Windows-only security protocols. The linux kids have reverse-engineered it, of course, but the mac guys are stuck drinking in Cafe Nero, at least for the time being. They’re really cashing in on it there: iCoffee is now their best-selling blend. It’s French.

Speaking of mac users, they’re pretty easy to spot too – it’s in the walk. They’re not like the early adopters mind you, the mac walk is one of elegance, and just a little bit of “I’m better than you”. At first it doesn’t look too different to any other walk, but then you look closer. Every tiny movement is governed by Apple’s new “core-motion” engine. There was a big noise when it was announced – apparently hand-coded under the supervision of Italian choreographers – and while I doubt it’s as efficient as whatever the beta-testers propel themselves with it sure is elegant; I gather it’s nigh-on impossible to get acting work without it.

A blue foil balloon floats across the stage. Its once and maybe future owner enters from the left, following its once and maybe future possession. The child stops center-stage, surrounded by trees that have crept out from a nearby war memorial.

Child (crying) : Why did mummy have to die?

Trees (as a chorus) : Your mother’s gone
Her stars don’t glimmer
The Cause is simple:
God hates a sinner.

Child (stops crying) : My good ness! Talking trees!

Trees: Slow-witted child
Shaming thou and thine
We don’t just talk
The forest rhymes.

a lumberjack enters from the rear, harking as he goes

Lumberjack: Hark at that, rhyming timber! Just what I need for this new writing desk, that my wife’s poetry might draw on the skill of enchanted wood!

Child: A lumberjack! Sir, save me from these judeo-christian plants!

Lumberjack: Stand aside, tiny citizen!

Trees: He’s a lumberjack and he’s all right.
He works all day and sleeps all night.
This copse won’t go without a fight;
We trees have bark, and also: bite!

the rhyming trees bite the lumberjack to death and kick his prone and lifeless form

Child (crying) : Why did the lumberjack have to die?

Trees: The fool lies slain
And that is that
For why he died?
He’s just a pratt

Child: You trees have rhyme
But want for reason
This is no spring
It’s killing season!

Trees: This kid can rhyme
It’s plain to see
He has skill, sure
But ne’er such as we!

Child: A rhyming battle
Is this the game?
You’ll neither win ‘gainst me
Nor rhyme again!

Trees: Bold words indeed
From one so young
We’ll play along
And have our fun

Child (emboldened) : Arrogant shrubs
Your verse is dire
You’ll surely burn
Atop my fire

Trees (embittered) : This child is rash
His speech is brave
Foretelling us
A fiery grave

Child (empowered) : Stand down fell flowers
Attack thus for hours
‘Tis no stronger than showers
You don’t have the powers!

Trees (embolism) : He ups the pace
Such a devilish face
Flee this place
…something …disgrace. We’re melting!

Child (crying) : Why did the trees have to die?

The balloon reappears from stage left and floats again across the scene. The child gives chase, weeping.

Another short play, this time for a mere 4 players, so long as you can find a pianoforte.

The scene: a lecture hall somewhere in Scotland. A liar and a fisherman are present. An accountant is lecturing on the proper attire for a loss-adjuster. Subdued organ-music is playing from an undisclosed location.

Fisherman: Where do you suppose that organ music’s coming from? It’s terribly subdued.
Liar: I do not know, though I enjoy it.
Fisherman: As do I; it reminds me of the last time I was at sea, in May.
Liar: What were you doing at sea in May?
Fisherman: (sing-song voice) I was fishing, as my trade dictates.
Liar: I know that, you simpleton, but all the world’s seas turn to coagulated blood in the late spring now, thanks to global warming.
Fisherman: Ah, curses upon out forefathers and their irresponsible ways. Truly their sins are visited upon us, as laid out in the Old Testament!
Liar: You mean the bit with the two women and the dead baby?
Fisherman: No, that was a Tim Burton movie, Helena Bonham Carter played the lifeless baby.
Liar: Ah yes, shame she didn’t try her hand at method for that one.
Fisherman: Have faith, brother! She’ll get hers come the revolution.
Liar: Well, quite, though that doesn’t explain what the devil you were fishing for in a sea of rancid blood.
Fisherman: I think you’ll find it does. Cast your mind back to basic training and our discussion with that Romanian optometrist.
Liar: Ah yes, I had forgotten to account for the p-orbitals. Quite so.
Lecturer: (falsetto) …so you see that leather chaps will always have a place in any professional’s wardrobe. Unless, of course, the professional is a rat-catcher, like this gentleman here!

A rat-catcher enters, stage-right. He carries a small pianoforte on his back with an elaborate harness made from the tails of rats.

Lecturer: (triumphant) As you can see, this man is not wearing any leather chaps at all.

The rat-catcher twirls gracefully, he is wearing torn Levis in some fashionable style. They are splattered with blood.

Lecturer: Indeed, I would imagine that this gentleman has never even heard of such a garment. Have you, sir?
Rat-catcher: Well, actually I have. I used to have an anteater that wore leather chaps. He was called Archduke Reginald Pianoforte, and I carry this on my back wherever I go in memory of him.
All: that’s a bloody odd name for an anteater!
Rat-catcher: (baritone) He was a bloody odd anteater!
Fisherman: And relax!

The rat-catcher relaxes a little, and falls over from the weight of the pianoforte. He hits the floor with the chord of G.

Liar: And with that, gentlemen, I must depart this oily stage. I go to fight communism in all its forms!
Fisherman: A noble endeavour indeed, though this is not where you are going. You have told a most blatant lie!
Liar: I have not!
Fisherman: You did it again!
Liar: I very much did not!
Fisherman: And a third! Bravo sir, you are a credit to your kind!
Liar: I have no idea what you’re talking about, and now I must away!
Fisherman: Oh, very good, bravo indeed!

The liar stands up and produces a slender revolver from the brim of his hat. He shoots himself in the head and collapses, motionless. The fisherman starts to sob uncontrollably, the lecturer and rat-catcher dance with each other slowly, to the now sombre organ-music.